Crime while not really crime

by Anne Buist
|
6 books
I read a lot of crime novels – but the ones that resonate, are the ones that get me thinking and leave me with something to ponder. It’s why I write the crime books I do – and especially why my latest, The Glass House is close to my heart; we are touring every bookshop in Australia to support bookshops and encourage talking about mental health.
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Before You Knew My Name

A Novel
Jacqueline Bublitz, 2022
Until I read this book, I thought crime books were about the victim. They so aren’t – but this one is. The perpetrator is, in many ways, irrelevant. This book makes you think about the consequences of murder. Beautifully written.

East of Eden

John Steinbeck, 2002
This isn’t really crime as such, but it is a beautiful and very powerful study of family dynamics and has some of the most memorable characters in fiction. This is a book I read many years ago, and it left an indelible mark. This is the book I would have liked to write – it has had me thinking about it and what it raises for years.

Where the Crawdads Sing (Movie Tie-In)

Delia Owens, 2022
There were things not to like about this book (or especially the movie), but it transported me to the deep American South and the feel of the book—the atmosphere and the marshes—lingered with me for a long time.

The Prince of Tides

A Novel
Pat Conroy, 2023
Okay, this isn’t a crime book in that there is no murder, but there is a mystery and an unraveling of a childhood that is poignant and beautifully told. Like the prior book, it is atmospheric of the deep south. I love all of Pat Conroy’s books, even the military one, and I loved the movie, too, even if the psychiatrist’s ethics are dubious at times (her office is sensational). Nick Nolte driving over the bridge saying ‘Lowenstein, Lowenstein’ still makes my heart soar every time I think about it.

The Collector

John Fowles, 2012
It’s with some trepidation that I recommend a book that apparently (I went to an FBI seminar many years ago) most serial killers have in their library. But this is the original and the best, a chilling examination from the perpetrator’s perspective.

Ritual

Mo Hayder, 2012
Mo Hayder’s books are not for the faint-hearted. Birdman is probably the first serial killer book in contemporary crime literature and it’s very gory. But I found she is such a great writer and tells such compelling stories that I seem to be able to look past this. Ritual, also in the Jack Caffery series, was riveting—loved the police diving and occult threaded through it.